Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), Introduction, p. 15
1940s
“People will observe you to see
How well you have observed.
The man who only observes himself however never gains
Knowledge of men. He is too anxious
To hide himself from himself. And nobody is
Cleverer than he himself is.”
"Speech to Danish working-class actors on the art of observation" [Rede an dänische Arbeiterschauspieler über die Kunst der Beobachtung] (1934), from The Messingkauf Poems, published in Versuche 14 (1955); trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, pp. 235-236
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
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Do you have more details about the quote "People will observe you to see
How well you have observed.
The man who only observes himself however never gains
Kno…" by Bertolt Brecht?
Bertolt Brecht102
German poet, playwright, theatre director 1898–1956Related quotes
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist
Lecture II : The Universal Categories, § 2 : Struggle, CP 5.53
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)
“Man as an observer is becoming completely alienated from himself as a being.”
Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic
The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)
Context: The relationship to the world that the modern science fostered and shaped now appears to have exhausted its potential. It is increasingly clear that, strangely, the relationship is missing something. It fails to connect with the most intrinsic nature of reality and with natural human experience. It is now more of a source of disintegration and doubt than a source of integration and meaning. It produces what amounts to a state of schizophrenia: Man as an observer is becoming completely alienated from himself as a being.
“A just king must be the first to observe those laws that he has himself prescribed.”
Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron
Ogni giusto re primo servatore dee essere delle leggi fatte da lui.
Seventh Day, Tenth Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)
Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy
Source: The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 15
Context: Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life. It is not only pleasant and agreeable images that he experiences with such universal understanding: the serious, the gloomy, the sad and the profound, the sudden restraints, the mockeries of chance, fearful expectations, in short the whole 'divine comedy' of life, the Inferno included, passes before him, not only as a shadow-play — for he too lives and suffers through these scenes — and yet also not without that fleeting sense of illusion; and perhaps many, like myself, can remember calling out to themselves in encouragement, amid the perils and terrors of the dream, and with success: 'It is a dream! I want to dream on!' Just as I have often been told of people who have been able to continue one and the same dream over three and more successive nights: facts which clearly show that our innermost being, our common foundation, experiences dreams with profound pleasure and joyful necessity.
Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) German sociologist, administration expert, and social systems theorist
Source: Art As a Social System (2000), p. 54 as cited in: Pamela M. Lee (2004) Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960's. p. 66.
